I feel almost bad for blogging about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As lovingly states in the notice by Twain, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." Sounds like reason enough to me not to have a blog entry.
However, the threat of a bad grade is more dangerous to me than being shot (we know where my priorities lie) so I'll continue. I've never read anything my Mark Twain before. My high school apparently wasn't all about reading the "classics" so I have never read Tom Sawyer. I thought this might be a hinderance to me and my reading, considering The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the companion book to it, yet having read Tom Sawyer is not necessary. The plot is easy enough to follow without it.
Passages in the book made me laugh, surprisingly. As Huck is describing his feelings on Moses, "...so then I didn't care about him; because I don't take no stock in dead people." I'm not sure if it's the bad English or Huck's blunt ideas that make this humorous to me. In Twain's time, perhaps I would have found this typical- the writing reflecting the speech of the time and not filled with bad grammar, as I notice now.
The English major in me really comes out with Jim's passages however. I know that Twain is accurately portraying the speech of this region at the time yet it is still tough for me to get through. I almost have to read Jim's speeches outloud, just to hear the sounds instead of trying to make out the words with the terrible grammar and mispronunciations.
Huck's bluntness also makes the book enjoyable. Unlike the last novel, The Scarlet Letter, this one isn't as dry to read, with long periods of nothing but description. The world is seen first-person through Huck's young and, at times, naive eyes. His take on the world and view on life gives the book character, making it a much more interesting read.
Posted by VanessaKolberg at October 24, 2005 11:03 AMI agree about the english major thing, because jim's dialect drives me crazy, but his words I think really set the feeling to the story. His words also reflect his honesty and I think that he allows jim to experience perhaps some of the father/son bonding that huck missed out on with his dad although often he takes care of jim too. I think the cursing and scams that Huck gets into are hilarious. It's much more upbeat than scarlet letter!
Posted by: Erin at October 24, 2005 6:00 PMHey Vanessa- I thought the use of bad English was hysterical, too. I caught myself talkin' like a hick while reading Huck and Jim's dialogue! I think Huck's language is so funny and I think its a combination of both bad English and a pure honesty to tell what's on his mind.
Posted by: Ashley Holtzer at October 24, 2005 9:18 PMClemens was unusual for his attention to detail in the depiction of authentic American speech -- grammatical errors and all. His characters don't sound like transplanted Europeans.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at October 24, 2005 11:02 PMI also really liked his viewpoint when it comes to life. I liked his comment on the fact that he does not care about Moses because he's dead. That really shows that Huck is a character that just gives his view whether or not it is acceptable.
Posted by: Stacy at October 24, 2005 11:13 PM